25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
John 19:25-27
Don’t listen to the adverts! Today is of course, not ‘mothers day’ but ‘mothering Sunday’. Now that might seem like knit-picking, but actually it’s an important distinction because mothering Sunday isn’t just about getting your mum a card. On mothering Sunday people used to go back to their ‘mother church’ and give thanks for all the people who had mothered them throughout their life.
If we were to pause there and I were to ask you what it means to ‘mother’ someone, what would you say? You might say something like, ‘to look after’ someone or to ‘care for them’ but I think that mothering has something in it that’s specific about growth. So I think I’d define mothering as to ‘help someone grow’.
So, if you think about it, we know that Mary did this pretty perfectly, she helped Jesus to grow. From teaching him as a young boy to pushing him to do the first miracle as he turned water into wine at the wedding of Cana, Mary helped Jesus to grow.
Then we have this scene at the foot of the cross, the amazing moment where Jesus, despite the intense agony of what he is going through, gave us this amazing moment of grace. There’s lots of disagreement about what exactly our gospel reading today means, we can think about it from a number of different perspectives. Jesus gives the beloved disciple to Mary as his son and Mary to him as his Mother but, for the sake of this sermon, I’d like to suggest that this is, in part, a message for how the church is supposed to be, we’re meant to take each other as a family, as brothers and sisters, sons and mothers… and today we’re reminded that we’re meant mother each other in that good way, not to nag each other or tell each other off, but to help each other to grow.
Let me tell you about some of the people in my life, some people in the church who have helped me to grow over the years, some people who have mothered me, who weren’t my family and didn’t need to mother me but did:
First I’d like to talk about a woman called Cheryl Larkman – when I was a teenager, as many of you know, I fell out with God. I had stopped going to church for a while and when I did go it wasn’t for the right reasons. I was not living a good life and didn’t really care who I hurt. And I remember the first time I went back into the church I had gone to when I was younger.
I was a bit scared, I felt guilty for some reason, like I wasn’t good enough to be in church. But then I saw Cheryl. I’d known Cheryl since I was about ten, she’d been a family friend and was the wife of the leader of the church and when she saw me she gave me this great big hug. She told me later that when she saw me she felt like I’d come home, and that was how it felt. She always encouraged me in the years to come. She encouraged me to join alpha groups, to join the worship band and to preach too – which was a disaster the first time I tried it, but her and her husband Rob were always encouraging to me, they helped me to grow by loving me and showing me new ways I could serve God. I never felt turned away by them. Cheryl wanted me to grow.
Then a few years passed and I’d finished bible college, I’d been on mission trips and spent huge parts of my life volunteering for Church and I’d just started as a children’s worked in a couple of parishes and I went in front of a panel to be considered for ordination. Now, you know what it’s like when you’re a young adult, some things become the most important thing in the world and being patient isn’t an option. Well nothing mattered as much to me at that point as time as the idea of being ordained. It was what my whole life was about, I couldn’t imagine another moment which didn’t’ involve me being a priest. But the panel didn’t see it that way, however, and I was turned down.
I was crushed. Every hope I’d had for my life had been put to one side. A solid no. They didn’t think I had what it takes to be a priest. I was gutted. So I went into work as a children’s worker day one full of self-doubt and a bit angry. But one of the priest I was working with, Father Barley, took me under his wing. He showed me how to live a life with a pattern of prayer. He taught me how to enjoy ministry and how to love people in the highs and lows of life. It didn’t matter if we were holding a kids service for hundreds of young people or whether, as happened on one occasion, we were in King’s College Cambridge with an older member of the congregation having an unfortunate bowel movement in the middle of a world-class evensong. Everything was done with joy and a love of the people we were serving. Father Barley helped me to grow. He mothered me. Not by telling me off or nagging me, though that happened at moments too, but by helping me to grow.
Both Cheryl and Father Barley were very different but both helped me to grow. Jesus was helped to grow by Mary and reminds us that we can all mother each other in the church, not just our relations but all of us. So my question to you is not about your physical mothers but whether or not you whether or not you have someone in your life who mothers you. Do you have someone who helps you to grow? It doesn’t matter how old you are. Do you have someone who is helping you to grow? Who is mothering you in the Church?
Of course today is hard, many have lost their mum or have strained relationships with their mums, but it all changes if we think about mothering Sunday like this, do you have people in your life who help you to grow? Of course there’s our mums and we can remember them and give thanks for them today but actually we should remember that the church is meant to be our family. Are there people in our lives who are helping us to grow in our faith? But also, perhaps even more importantly, are we helping others to grow too?
Imagine a garden as vast as a meadow. Beautiful flowers of every king growing and flourishing. Now imagine weeds begin to grow, weeds that don’t care about the growth of other plants but just want to steal the sunlight for themsleves… don’t we do that sometimes? Instead of asking how we can help others to grow we stifle others and take their sunlight? Live your life asking not, how can I take from others so that I might grow, but instead, how can I encourage others to grow. It’s no good being in charge of the same rota for 50 years if you don’t want anyone else to do the job.
The question you should ask is, how do I help others to grow?
So go out from today and think about this. Who could I invite into my life to help me grow spiritually. Whether that’s by talking to me and I can help you find that person, a contemporary or a friend who will make you think about the important things in life, or whether you know someone you can go and talk to, make space for those mothering relationships this lent. But so too should you look around you and ask yourself, is there one thing I can do this week to help someone else to grow in their faith? Maybe a young person in your family, maybe a friend or colleague at work. Ask yourself, how can I take someone as my brother, son, daughter or mother this week, as Jesus gave Mary to John.
Amen.
All Saints Church Chorley 